Campus Updates

[AprilDavies]

Reply to this message with your updates. Thanks!

[AprilDavies]

Construction is progressing. We got the librarian offices and the workroom back just last week. Next up is half of the top floor, followed by everything that hasn't been done yet (which is half the building). Summer ought to be fun.

The Library continues to co-sponsor the Community of Scholars lecture series. The second one of the semester is happening this afternoon... "Carlin in Composition: The Use of Stand-Up Comedy in the English Composition Classroom."

We're in the process of hiring a new Provost. The first of the finalists will be on campus next week.

[Karen Ferington]

The most recent news at Niagara C.C.C. is that we have received several iPads from funds in a technology grant.  The librarians are using the iPads right now and exploring ways to use the new technology in our reference work with patrons.
We are also searching for an Emerging Technology Librarian. Applications have closed and the review of applications will begin soon.   

[grimesb]

Personnel change seems to be a continuing theme at SUNYIT.  Crystal Pogorzelski, our library systems manager, has accepted a new position at a non-profit agency in Buffalo and will leave at the end of this week.  We will truly miss her and her knowledge of all things Aleph and Illiad.  Our secretary, Rose Stevens, left a week ago to work for Empire State College in Utica.  We will try to limp along without both of them. 

Pam Flinton, paid a visit and has been mentoring us on the lending side of Illiad since our ILL lending clerk retired.  Pam and Andy Perry have helped with recommendations on how to do more with less.  We owe a huge thank you to Pam for her input and willingness to help us.

We will be searching for a new Provost in the near future.  Our current Provost decided to take advantage of the early retirement offer.

The planning for the Learning Commons to be located in the library will ramp up in December.  The library staff has been making room for the addition of more partners in the building, mainly on the first floor.  We have been shifting the collection upstairs to make room for the print journal collection, currently on the first floor.  It is hoped that all planning can take place in the Spring and then be implemented in the Summer.

[Carleen Huxley]

We recently started using Gimlet to track our reference stats, http://www.gimlet.us/.  We're really liking it so far.  We also recently got a Keurig machine which has turned out to be a real hit with the students. Kenyon Wells, our technical services librarian, presented (The role of a Library Assistant) at the 4rth Annual Library Assistants' Day in Syracuse.

[sarahmorehouse]

Big news! Heather Shalhoub and Ian Hertz are joining the library full-time starting on December 1! Ian was hired as a librarian but got absorbed by the helpdesk. Heather is a librarian who was originally hired for the helpdesk. Now the Empire State College Library has five full-time librarians, and we're pleased as punch. 

Other things are brewing, but mostly we are in the lull between the launch of our Information Skills Tutorial (http://commons.esc.edu/informationskills) and the next big projects, which will probably be winter-spring things. In the mean time, we have completed our fall cycle of webinars called @Home Library Workshops. They were better-attended this year than last, and have been very well received. We have an intro to library skills webinar, an intro to citing webinar, and a variety of shorter ones. Also, our resource sharing arrangement with UB has grown so fast that we're thrilled to be budgeting more for it the coming year.

[mcnuttdc]

We are excited to welcome Amanda Mitchell as our new Electronic Resources and Instruction Librarian. Amanda started early in the semester and has already explored ways to promote our electronic resources, such as linking our content through Google Scholar.

As has been reported previously, the Resnick Library & Learning center absorbed the campus's academic computing lab this summer. Our renovation to allow this hinged on the financial support from Richard and Marilyn Wickham. We held a dedication for the newly named Wickham Information Commons, Friday, November 12.

[mcbridmf]

Buffalo State has purchase BePress and it has gained enormous attention from our faculty. BePress, which stands for Berkley Press, was "Founded by professors in 1999, Berkeley Electronic Press publishes peer-reviewed electronic journals and develops software for the next generation of scholarly publishing. The bepress journals collection, ResearchNow, redefines what scholarly journals can do today, with fast and high quality peer review at sustainable prices. The bepress open-access Institutional Repository platform, Digital Commons, is the world's leading hosted Institutional Repository, featuring an innovative suite of publishing and software services.

Our chief archivist Dan Dilandro won the WNYLRC award for Excellence in Library Service.

It was announce that our CIO Voldemar Innus will be stepping down in January and his replacement would be Don Erwin, currently our senior associate vice president for information services and systems.

[kathrynmasten]

We will be searching for a new Director and Art Librarian in the spring as both are taking advantage of the early retirement offer.  Our Director will continue working some hours during the spring semester until the search for a new Director is complete.  Laurie Clemo is our new Interim Provost.

Our library program study is moving along with Sasaki Inc. of Boston.  WTCox is our new serials vendor starting Jan. 2011.  We are working on the implementation phase of LibGuides.

[Danharms]

SUNY Cortland is welcoming two new additions to the staff:  Roger Cotrofeld, who is our Associate Director of the Information Resources Support Center, and Ann Lang, our Keyboard Specialist for Periodicals.  They join Steve Bergman, Nancy Mead, and Sharon Consler, who have joined the IRSC from the help center.

A search for multiple adjunct librarians is ongoing.

The library portal is up and running.  Thanks to Loren Leonard and Jennifer Kronenbitter for all their hard work.

Our new website, geared toward prospective students, has been unveiled:  http://library.cortland.edu/

[MargaretDevereaux]

This fall we formed a Student Library Advisory Committee on the Auburn campus, and things are off to a smooth start.  Right now the group primarily is composed of students who are also tutors in the Academic Support Center, so they tend to be good library supporters already. One of our goals is to offer more student-centered activities and events. Members of this group have made some suggestions that we are able to implement easily, and we are excited to have this new partnership.   

[lcharbonneau]

We hired a new part-time librarian.  Nancy Becker joins our staff working at the Utica Campus Library.  Nancy recently accepted a retirement offer from St. John’s University, where she was an Associate Professor in the Division of Library and Information Sciences.  She was looking to remain active professionally providing reference in an academic setting.

[jyaples]

Moving forward with interviews for Metadata/Catalog Librarian position at the beginning of Dec. Even though the deadline for applications was Oct. 1st, it took a while to whittle down potential candidates from 70 or so down to 5. No interviews scheduled yet for Social Sciences Librarian, but then the application deadline for that position was Oct. 18th and I understand there was just as many applicants for that position as well. Lost a couple of clerical staff at the end of Sept. due to the State retirement incentive. Only have heard of one Library Faculty member leaving at the end of December. Supposedly we have been authorized to fill 3 more positions (budget willing). That should make a dent in the 40 positions that have gone vacant in the last few years. There was a water main break the weekend of Nov. 13th that resulted in power and water outages in 3 of the Science buildings including the one that houses the Science Library. The Science Library building is now open, but classes have been reassigned for the other 2 buildings until further notice.

[kathleenquinlivan]

The search for a new University at Buffalo president is underway. Current president, John Simpson, plans to retire January 15, 2011.

The UB Libraries have unveiled a new version of the BISON catalog and students and faculty are encouraged to offer comments on the new system. The catalog uses VuFind software to offer interesting new ways to search and browse results, and includes the option of texting a call number to your phone:
http://catalog.lib.buffalo.edu/

Three newly refurbished collaborative study rooms are available in Lockwood Library:
http://ubit.buffalo.edu/collabspaces/collabrooms.php

The Spectrum, UB's student newspaper, has been added to the Libraries' digital collections, covering the years 1950-1957:
http://ubdigit.buffalo.edu/collections/lib/lib-ua/lib-ua006_Spectrum.php

[tlparadis]

It was announced yesterday by our administration that the College will will deactivate three academic programs: computer science, communicative disorders and sciences, and studio art. The programs will be supported for the next 3 years so that those students already in those programs will finish, but no new students will be accepted. This will mean the elimination of 45 non-instructional positions throughout the college and 9 faculty positions vacated through retirements. The official announcement can be found here: http://www.geneseo.edu/budget_update

Milne's Scholarly Communication team celebrated Open Access Week for the first time this year with a modest offering of one guest speaker from a local University and a small panel of faculty members from Geneseo talking about their experiences with open access. You can read the details here: http://undergraduatesciencelibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/open-access-week-at-suny-geneseo/

Sciences Librarian, Bonnie Swoger and Geoscience professor Dori Farthing presented the poster,  ”Fueling Learning Outside the Classroom with Strategic Searching of the Geoscience Literature” at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting.

Tom Ottaviano, Michelle Costello, and Justina Elmore presented on Single Service Point Models at NYLA 2010 along with representatives from  Librarians Charlie Cowling from SUNY Brockport and Kate Jenkins from MCC.

Donna Hanna and I are the Co-Chairs for the 33rd Annual New York State Library Assistants' Association (NYSLAA) Conference being held here June 8-10, 2010.  We are getting a tremendous amount of support and assistance from the whole Milne Library Staff and are looking forward to an exciting event.  SUNY Geneseo and the whole area will be a beautiful backdrop that we are incorporating into our plans for our guests.  The workshops will be geared toward the needs of library assistants including technology, record maintenance, patron issues, round-tables and green initiatives, just to name a few.  We are working to keep our costs in line with last year's and think the NYSLAA Conference is a real bargain in this difficult economy.  Hope to see many of you in June.

Coleen Hopkins
33rd Annual NYSLAA Conference Co-Chair